Part 30

Mr. Warneford, who was only 22 years of age, was the son of an Anglo-Indian railway engineer, and before the war was in the mercantile marine. He went home to “do something” for his country, enlisted in the 2nd Sportsman’s Battalion, was transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service, passed the tests for a pilot’s certificate within a few days, and was given a commission. He was noted at the flying school as one of the most brilliant pupils the instructors had ever known. A month after obtaining his commission he went to France, where his reckless daring soon made him conspicuous in a service where venturesomeness is the general rule. On the morning of June 7, 1915, at 3 a.m., he encountered a Zeppelin returning from the coast of Flanders to Ghent, and chased it, mounting above it and sailing over it at a height of 6,000 feet. Zeppelin and aeroplane exchanged shots, and when the Zeppelin was between one and two hundred feet immediately below him he dropped six bombs on it. One bomb hit the Zeppelin fairly, causing a terrific explosion, and setting the airship on fire from end to end.

[Illustration:

© _Leslie Weekly._

The Tragic Death of Lieut. Warneford

A few days after he had destroyed a Zeppelin, he fell to his death while making a flight near Paris. With him Henry Beach Needham, an American writer, was also killed.]

Warneford’s aeroplane was caught by the force of the explosion and turned upside down, but he succeeded in righting it before it touched the ground. He was forced to alight within the German lines. Nevertheless he restarted his engine, though not without great difficulty, and in due course returned to his station without damage. Only the framework of the Zeppelin was left, the crew being all burned or mangled, and the body of the machine being completely destroyed. The flaming framework dropped on the Convent School of St. Amandsberg, killing one nun and burning two Sisters who had rushed into the street with children in their arms. The machine on which Warneford made this attack was a Morane “Parasol,” a little monoplane with a pair of wings raised well above the pilot’s head. This construction gives the aviator full view on either side below, thus enabling him to take good aim for bomb dropping. The Morane of that type was also noted as a quick-climbing machine, a very decided advantage in attacking Zeppelins.

The story of Warneford’s triumph sent a thrill through England. The King promptly sent a personal telegram of congratulation to him, and conferred upon him the Victoria Cross. The telegram ran as follows:

“I most heartily congratulate you upon your splendid achievement of yesterday, in which you single-handed destroyed an enemy Zeppelin.

“I have much pleasure in conferring upon you the Victoria Cross for this gallant act.

“GEORGE R.I.”

Next day the French War Minister, on the recommendation of General Joffre, awarded Warneford the Cross of the Legion of Honor. It was known that he was returning on a visit to England. A splendid public welcome was prepared for him. He went first, however, to Paris, and there in company with Henry Needham, an American journalist, he set out on a new Henry Farman biplane, which he proposed to take by air to Dunkirk. Warneford and his passenger had risen to 700 feet when the machine wobbled violently for a few seconds, and then overturned, throwing them both out. They were both killed instantly. The return to England was different from that which had been anticipated. In the late evening of June 21, a fortnight after the deed which won him fame, the train carrying Warneford’s body came into Victoria Station. Thousands of people had assembled there to pay their final tributes to the hero, and the little procession of the coffin covered by the Union Jack, mounted on a gun-carriage, and guarded by seamen of the Royal Naval Division, moved out amid the bared heads of the silent crowd. Warneford was buried in Brompton Cemetery.

The strictly American aviation operations started in the middle of March, 1918, with the patrolling of the front from Villeneuve-les-Vertus by an American pursuit squadron using planes of the French-built Nieuport-28 type. These operations were in the nature of a tryout of the American trained aviators, and their complete success was followed by an immediate increase of the aerial forces at the front, with enlargement of their duties and field of action. By the middle of May, 1918, squadrons of all types—pursuit, observation, and bombing—as well as balloon companies were in operation over a wide front. These squadrons were equipped with the best available types of British and French-built service planes.

[Illustration:

© _New York Herald._

The Pilot in the Forward Gondola of a Zeppelin

The front gondola of a Zeppelin is screened to protect the pilot and assistants. Searchlights and other means of illumination are carried on board to be used when necessary.]

ONE MINUTE PLUS

Three Attacking Hun Machines Downed by “Ricky” in About Seventy Ticks

No one has succeeded better than Boyd Cable, in the _Red Cross Magazine_, in conveying an impression of what “Quick Work” means in the war combats between aeroplanes when the fighting machines are in expert hands. But after all it is doubtful if one can realize in reading how quick the action was, inasmuch as the fight took less time than you will require to read one of these columns aloud. As Mr. Cable says:

“It is difficult, if not indeed impossible, to convey in words what is perhaps the most breath-catching wonder of air fighting work, the furious speed, the whirling rush, the sheer rapidity of movement of the fighting machines, and the incredible quickness of a pilot’s brain, hand, and eye to handle and maneuver a machine, and aim and shoot a gun under these speed conditions. I can only ask you to try to remember that a modern fast scout is capable of flying at well over a hundred miles an hour on the level, and at double that (one may not be too exact) in certain circumstances, and that in such a fight as I am going to try to describe here the machines were moving at anything between these speeds. If you can bear this in mind, or even realize it—I am speaking to the non-flying reader—you will begin to understand what airmen-o’-war work is, to believe what a pilot once said of air fighting: ‘You don’t get time to think. If you stop to think, you’re dead.’

“When the flight of half a dozen scout machines was getting ready to start on the usual ‘offensive patrol’ over Hunland, one of the pilots, ‘Ricky-Ticky’ by popular name, had some slight trouble with his engine. It was nothing much, a mere reluctance to start up easily, and since he did get her going before the flight was ready to take off, he naturally went up with it. He had a little more trouble in the upward climb to gain a height sufficient for the patrol when it crossed the line to stand the usual respectable chance of successfully dodging the usual ‘Archie’ shells.

“Ricky, however, managed to nurse her up well enough to keep his place in the formation, and was still in place when they started across the lines. Before they were far over Hunland he knew that his engine was missing again occasionally, and was not pulling as she ought to, and from a glance at his indicators and a figuring of speed, height, and engine revolutions was fairly certain that he was going almost full out to keep up with the other machines, which were flying easily and well within their speed.”

FOLLOWING THE CHANCE

“This was where he would perhaps have been wise to have thrown up and returned to his ’drome. He hung on in the hope that the engine would pick up again—as engines have an unaccountable way of doing—and even when he found himself dropping back out of place in the formation he still stuck to it and followed on. He knew the risk of this; knew that the straggler, the lame duck, the unsupported machine is just exactly what the Hun flyer is always on the lookout for; knew, too, that his Flight-Commander before they had started had warned him (seeing the trouble he was having to start up) that if he had any bother in the air or could not keep place in the formation to pull out and return. Altogether, then, the trouble that swooped down on him was his own fault, and you can blame him for it if you like. But if you do you’ll have to blame a good many other pilots who carry on, and in spite of the risk, do their best to put through the job they are on. He finally decided—he looked at the clock fixed in front of him to set a time and found it showed just over one minute to twelve—in one minute, at noon exactly, if his engine had not steadied down to work, he would turn back for home.

[Illustration:

_Courtesy Red Cross Magazine._

Airplanes in Battle Formation

When the first light of day appeared enemy and allied airplanes both ascended and fought for the supremacy of the air.]

“At that precise moment—and this was the first warning he had that there were Huns about—he heard a ferocious rattle of machine gun fire, and got a glimpse of streaking flame and smoke from the tracer bullets whipping past him. The Huns, three of them and all fast fighting scouts, had seen him coming, had probably watched him drop back out of place in the flight, had kept carefully between him and the sun so that his glances round and back had failed to spot them in the glare, and had then dived headlong on him, firing as they came.

“They were coming down on him from astern and on his right side, or, as the Navals would put it, on his starboard quarter, and they were perhaps a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards off when Ricky first looked round and saw them. His first and most natural impulse was to get clear of the bullets that were spitting round and over him, and in two swift motions he had opened his engine full out, thrust his nose a little down, and was off full pelt. Promptly the three astern swung a little, opened out as they wheeled, dropped their noses, and came after Ricky, still a little above him, and so fairly astern that only the center one could keep a sustained accurate fire on him. (A scout’s gun being fixed and shooting between the blades of the propeller—gun and engine being synchronized so as to allow the bullet to pass out as the blade is clear of the muzzle—means that the machine itself must be aimed at the target for the bullets to hit, and two outer machines of the three could only so aim their machines by pointing their noses to converge on the center one—a risky maneuver with machines traveling at somewhere about a hundred miles an hour.)

“But the fire of that center one was too horribly close for endurance, and Ricky knew that although his being end-on made him the smaller target, it also made his machine the more vulnerable to a raking shot which, piercing him fore and aft, could not well fail to hit petrol tank, or engine, or some other vital spot. He could do nothing in the way of shooting back, because, being a single-seater scout himself, his two guns were trained one to shoot straight forward through the propeller, the other, mounted on the top plane on a curved mount allowing the gun to be grasped by the handle above him and pulled back and down, to shoot from direct ahead to straight up? Neither could shoot backward.

“Ricky, the first shock of his surprise over, had gauged the situation, and, it must be admitted, it was

“DANGEROUS IF NOT DESPERATE

“He had dropped back and back from the flight, until now they were something like a mile ahead of him. A mile, it is true, does not take a modern machine long to cover, but then, on the other hand, neither does an air battle take long to fight, especially with odds of three to one. With those bullets sheeting past him and already beginning to rip and crack through his wings, any second might see the end of Ricky. It was no use thinking longer of running away, and even a straight-down nose-dive offered no chance of escape, both because the Huns could nose-dive after him and continue to keep him under fire, and because he was well over Hunland, and the nearer he went to the ground the better target he would make for the anti-aircraft gunners below. He must act, and act quickly.

“A thousand feet down and a quarter of a mile away was a little patch of cloud. Ricky swerved, dipped, and drove ‘all out’ for it. He was into it—400 yards remember—in about the time it takes you to draw three level quiet breaths, and had flashed through it—five or six hundred feet across it might have been—in a couple of quick heart-beats. The Huns followed close, and in that half-dozen seconds Ricky had something between fifty and a hundred bullets whizzing and ripping past and through his wings. As he leaped clear of the streaming wisps of the cloud’s edge he threw one look behind him and pulled the joy-stick hard in to his stomach. Instantly his machine reared and swooped up in the loop he had decided on, up and over and round. At the first upward zoom Ricky had pulled down the handle of his top gun and brought it into instant action. The result was that as he shot up and over in a perfect loop the center machine, which had been astern of him, flashed under and straight through the stream of his bullets.

“Ricky whirled down in the curve of his loop with his gun still shooting, but now that he had finished his loop and flattened out, shooting up into the empty air while his enemy hurtled straight on and slightly downward ahead of him. Instantly Ricky threw his top gun out of action, and having now reversed positions, and having his enemy ahead, steadied his machine to bring his bow gun sights to bear on her. But before he could fire he saw the hostile’s left upper plane twist upward, saw the machine spin side on, the top plane rip and flare fiercely back and upward, the lower plane buckle and break, and the machine turning over and over plunge down and out of his sight. One of his bullets evidently had cut some bracing wires or stays, and the wing had given to the strain upon it. So much Ricky just had time to think, but immediately found himself in a fresh danger.

CLEVER WORK

“The two remaining hostiles had flashed past him at the same time as the center one, while he threw his loop over it, but realizing apparently on the instant what his maneuver was, they both swung out and round while he passed in his loop over the center machine. It was smart work on the part of the two flanking hostiles. They must have instantly divined Ricky’s dodge to get astern of them all, and their immediate circle out and round counteracted it, and as he came out of his loop brought them circling in again on him. In an instant Ricky was suddenly roused to the fresh danger by two following short bursts of fire which flashed and flamed athwart him, and caught a glimpse of the other two closing in and again astern of him and ‘sitting on his tail.’

“Both were firing as they came, and again Ricky felt the sharp rip and crack of explosive bullets striking somewhere on his machine, and an instant later knew that the two were following him and hailing lead upon him. He cursed savagely. He had downed one enemy, but here apparently he was little if any better off with two intact enemies in the worst possible position for him, ‘on his tail,’ and both shooting their hardest. A quick glance ahead showed him the white glint of light on the wheeling wings of his flight, attracted by the rattle of machine guns, circling and racing to join the fight.

“But fast as they came, the fight was likely to be over before they could arrive, and with the crack and snap of bullets about him and his own two guns powerless to bear on the enemy, it looked uncomfortably like odds on the fight ending against him. Another loop they would expect and follow over—and the bullets were crippling him every instant. Savagely he threw his controls over, and his machine slashed out and down to the right in a slicing two-hundred-foot side-slip.

“The right-hand machine whirled past him so close that he saw every detail of the pilot’s dress—the fur-fringed helmet, dark goggles, black sweater. He caught his machine out of her downward slide, drove her ahead, steadied her, and brought his sights to bear on the enemy a scant twenty yards ahead, and poured a long burst of fire into her. He saw the bullets break and play on and about the pilot and fuselage. Then came a leaping flame, and a spurt of black smoke whirling out from her; Ricky had a momentary glimpse of the pilot’s agonized expression as he glanced wildly around, and next instant saw a trailing black plume of smoke and the gleam of a white underbody as the enemy nose-dived down in a last desperate attempt to make a landing before his machine dissolved in flames about him.

“With a sudden burst of exultation Ricky realized his changed position. A minute before he was in the last and utmost desperate straits, three fast and well-armed adversaries against his single hand. Now, with two down, it was man to man—no, if he wished, it was all over, because the third hostile had swung left, had her nose down, and was ‘hare-ing’ for home and down toward the covering fire of the German anti-aircraft batteries. Already she was two to three hundred yards away, and the first German Archie soared up and burst with a rending ‘Ar-rrgh’ well astern of him. But Ricky’s blood was up and singing songs of triumph in his ears. Two out of three downed; better make a clean job of it and bag the lot.”

MAKING A CLEAN JOB

“His nose dipped and his tail flicked up, and he went roaring down, full out, after his last Hun. A rapid crackle of one machine gun after another struck his ear before ever he had the last hostile fully centered in his sights. Ricky knew that at last the flight had arrived and were joining in the fight. But he paid no heed to them; his enemy was in the ring of his sights now, so with his machine hurling down at the limit of speed of a falling body plus all the pull of a hundred and odd horsepower, the whole fabric quivering and vibrating under him, the wind roaring past and in his ears, Ricky snuggled closer in his seat, waited till his target was fully and exactly centered in his sights, and poured in a long, clattering burst of fire.

[Illustration:

_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._

Major James A. Meissner

He was decorated for bravery in action in the Toul sector. He attacked many enemy observation balloons. He was shot down in his plane several times.]

“The hostile’s slanting nose-dive swerved into a spin, an uncontrolled side-to-side plunge, back again into a spinning dive that ended in a straight-downward rush and a crash end on into the ground.

“Whether it was Ricky or some other machine of the flight that got this last hostile will never be known. Ricky himself officially reported having crashed two, but declined to claim the third as his. On the other hand, the rest of the flight, after and always, with enthusiastic unanimity, insisted that she was Ricky’s very own, that he had outplayed, outfought, and killed three Huns in single combat with them—one down and t’other come on. If Ricky himself could not fairly and honestly claim all rights to the last Hun, the flight did. ‘_Three!_’ they said vociferously in mess that night, and would brook no modest doubts from him.

“As the last Hun went reeling down, Ricky, in the official language of the combat reports, ‘rejoined formation and continued the patrol.’ He pulled the stick toward him and rose buoyantly, knowing that he was holed over and over again, that bullets, and explosive bullets at that, had ripped and rent and torn the fabrics of his machine, possibly had cut away some strut or stay or part of the frame. But his engine appeared to be all right again, had never misbehaved a moment during the fight, was running now full power and blast; his planes swept smooth and steady along the wind levels, his controls answered exactly to his tender questioning touch. He had fought against odds of three to one and—he had won out. He was safe, barring accident, to land back in his own ’drome; and there were two if not three Huns down on his brazen own within the last—how long?

“At the moment of his upward zoom on the conclusion of the fight he glanced at his clock which had not been hit by the enemy fire, could hardly believe what it told him, was only convinced when he recalled that promise to himself to turn back at the end of that minute, and had his belief confirmed by the flight’s count of the time between their first hearing shots and their covering the distance to join him. His clock marked exactly noon. The whole fight, from the firing of the first shot to the falling away of the last Hun, had taken bare seconds over the one minute. That pilot was right; in air fighting ‘you don’t get time to think.’”

“THE PICTURES ARE GOOD”

That’s All That Observation Pilot Miller Cared About When the End Came

Among the men killed at Château-Thierry was John Q. Miller, of Fairview, N. C., first lieutenant of the air service, shot down July 24, 1918. He was one of the airmen of whom the public had probably not heard, for his courage and daring were not as spectacular as the bravery of Luke, Rickenbacker or Lufbery. At the time of his death he was the greatest observation pilot on the front, according to the story of Major Elmer R. Haslett in an issue of _United States Air Service_, the official publication of the Army and Navy Air Service Association.

[Illustration: At the Tomb of Napoleon

In this historic spot a hero of the World War is being decorated for bravery.]

The unsung, silent heroes of the air are the observation pilots, who at the risk of life go forward into impossible places to get pictures of enemy positions and come back with their machines riddled with shrapnel from “archie” fire. At the outset Miller, says Major Haslett, attracted attention for the serious way in which he took his work. He took assignment after assignment when he might have stayed back in the barracks, and never failed to complete his mission. Momentarily driven off by hostile aircraft or by too heavy “archie,” he would return to the job and come back with his pictures or observations, and his plane so full of holes that it had to be salvaged.

IN SPITE OF WOUNDS